Cobras Still Pushing for Top Spot
By James Hamper
Cobras 3 – 1 Croydon & Old Whitgiftians M4s
A curtain raiser to the football game later on Saturday afternoon at Anfield, this had all the similar drama of a Premiership top of table clash. Cobras and Croydon 4s challenging for the top spot in SOHL4! What drama and excitement!
The cold wet drizzle put paid to any extended warmup and after a short trot round the basketball court at Oaken Lane we were ready to go.
In uncanny parallels with the afternoon’s football, cobras got off to a flyer with some sublime counterattacking hockey. Maybe not quite the pace of Mane and Salah, but Mckee and O’Connor were tearing around at the front making a nuisance of themselves and hassling the Croydon defence. Within five minutes we were on the scoreboard, William Tsolo picking the ball up at the back of the D and launching a sublime flick into the top corner. A goal worthy of comparisons to Fabinho’s wonder strike.
Shortly after we had a second, a well worked short corner that was designed and finished by James King, after a clever short ball threw the defence off kilter. James’s second came not long after and Croydon were stunned, 3-0 down within ten minutes!
Unfortunately, we still had another hour to play in the rain and from here the comparisons to the professionals fall away. Fatigue and dodgy hamstrings coming to the fore, we never regained the beautiful ball control of the first 10 minutes, but in the end it was enough and the points were in the bag and we could head back to the club for a warm shower. The only disappointment was we got back to find Reigate Priory had won 10-0 earlier and leapfrogged us both to the top of the table!
Maybe it was a bit premature to start calling ourselves “the Reds”...!